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“We need to talk,” Jack said.
My stomach clenched. He was going to fire me. I’d literally just quit my job and he was going to fire me. “Okay,” I whispered.
“I’m tired of avoiding you. It’s getting ridiculous, and we’re both adults. We can speak without it needing to mean anything.”
I waited not sure I was fully grasping what he meant. “Right?” I said slowly.
“So I’m ready to talk. More than we have.”
“What is it that you think us talking would mean, exactly?”
“Look. I’m not one for bullshit. I’ll spell this out. I’m attracted to you. Deeply attracted. But I’m not going to allow that to mean anything because Ben needs you. That means I need you. And I know one fact of life is the most reliable way to chase a woman out of my life is to sleep with her.”
My eyebrows had slowly crept upwards until I wondered if they’d slipped beneath my hairline. “Wow. That’s a lot to unpack.”
“I want to take you out to eat tomorrow night. I’ll get a babysitter for the boys.”
I blinked. “Didn’t you just say—”
“Here,” he said, handing me a check. “It’s a nice restaurant, and I don’t want you needing to use your own money if you don’t have something to wear. Will that be enough?”
I looked at the check. A thousand dollars? For one outfit? “I could dress a small army for this amount.”
“Then consider the leftover overtime pay. Just say you’ll be there.”
“Okay, since we’re on this no bullshit theme. Can I just say that if the goal is for us to not sleep together, a fancy dinner alone feels like a step in the wrong direction? Not that I’m going to wind up making you suck my toes just because we had a good steak or anything.” I blinked, swallowed, then replayed the memory a few times. Yep. Definitely just said that.
Jack had no expression at first, but then he cracked slightly. One of his eyebrows slid downward and his mouth pulled up at the corner. “I was thinking this would be like a test. We prove we can handle ourselves like mature adults for one night. And I was making mental contingencies for what I’d do if you showed up in something provocative or tried to play footsie. Now I guess I know I should be on the lookout for toe sucking advances, too.”
I was blushing so hard it almost hurt, but I was also smiling. “Jack Kerrigan,” I said, laughing softly. “Did you just try to make a funny?”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t make jokes.”
“Right. Well, let me just make sure I have this plan straight in my head. You’re like a vegetarian who wants to prove it by sitting down in front of a juicy cheeseburger all night?”
“No. I’m a carnivore who wants to prove I can resist eating one cheeseburger in particular. Or sucking its toes.”
Okay. That was definitely a joke.18JackI had the waitress seat us outside once we arrived at the restaurant. Our table was on a small rooftop veranda fenced in by an ivy-covered wood lattice. Nola had apparently used the money I’d given her to buy an ankle-length dress that hugged her form around the hips and chest. She had on a cardigan over it that gave her the slightly adorable look of a teacher or a librarian.
Her usually braided hair was down over her shoulders and straight, as well, which I found far sexier than I should have.
I shifted in my chair, then rolled up the sleeves of my dress shirt. “So,” I said, feeling uncharacteristically awkward. I’d been on countless dates just like this. Except I’d never been on a date that was supposed to fail.
“So,” Nola echoed. She rested her chin on the backs of her hands, then wiggled her eyebrows. “Am I supposed to make tonight a disaster? Is that how this goes?”
“To be completely honest, I’ve never done this.”
“Oh, is that so? You’ve never paid a woman to go on a date with you so you could prove you won’t sleep with her? How strange. This is like my tenth of these in the past month.”
I grimaced. “I owe you an apology for this, by the way. I talked before I thought last night. And I didn’t consider how selfish this whole idea was.”
“Well, thank you. And yes, it is selfish.” As usual, Nola softened any possible bite to her words with a mischievous smile. “However,” she added very slowly. “I prefer to look at the world as optimistically as I can. And I chose to be flattered that Jack Kerrigan thinks I’m a juicy piece of meat he wishes he could sink his teeth into.”
Fuck. Just watching her lips form the words only made the desire thumping in my chest intensify. I didn’t just want a taste. I wanted to lay her out on the nearest flat surface—to swipe my hand across the table and clear every last plate and piece of silverware. I wanted her spread out beneath me so I could unwrap her like a present, and I wanted to do it so badly I could feel the painful ache of need between my legs already.
